Monday, January 25

I worked up this image a lot before getting to a coloring stage. It bedeviled me. I had to keep working on it. But this isn't bad. Agent Carter and Wonder Woman fighting a group named Hydra makes a lot of sense to me.

Thursday, January 14

I wasn't really familiar with Oscar Issac before Force Awakens, but he certainly made an impression as Poe Dameron.

He was unflappable and energetic. Watch him realize he's gonna escape a Star Destroyer with Finn in a stolen TIE Fighter. It's Christmas morning for that guy. Watch how he says "Good to meet you too, Finn." He jumps the line a little, and not because he's impatient. He's in an a higher gear in that moment. But he still sounds sincere and enthused. He has relatively little screen time, but he owns the room.

My son got the Disney Infinity Star Wars games this Christmas, including the Force Awakens. It comes with Finn and Rey. Yes, a Rey figure. Really. But it doesn't come with a Poe. The next day, I drive my son out to buy a Poe figure with some of his Christmas movie. He loves Poe. He's asked me for a Poe drawing the weekend after seeing the movie. Poe with Legolas, whom my dude pretends to be, and Poe would be his brother.

And I did.

Poe's has the weirdest face to draw. It's the trickiest I've tried since Nic Cage, the gold standard for the game of How Does Your Face Work. And maybe it was the challenge of the face or Poe's charm that led me to keep drawing him.

The phrase one-man boy band came to me as we walked through the store with the Poe figure. And it took forever to work the face, and here's one reason why: Oscar Issac has deep eye bags. They accentuates his smile lines. Poe, however, doesn't. They're either hidden by make-up or lighting or regular sleep. But it changes his face.

And that's the final product, made in Illustrator.

But then I thought about the jacket scene at the rebel base, and it quickly went to the old Uncle Sam poster.

But I customized it.

And this took off like a rocket online, so I decided to work it up as a print, again in Illustrator.

And you can buy either or both right now, individually or as a pair (see below).

Monday, January 4

I’m re-reading the Darwyn Cooke Parker adaptations this week, and it made me think of other crime characters who could get the same treatment. I went silly pretty quickly, right to the Scooby Doo cast.

I thought about making a Cooke one-page parody ending with a dramatically muttered “jinkies” in an office clouded in cigarette smoke. Then a title card of DINKLEY FOR HIRE.

I pushed it. If this was an older Velma, we’d be in the future, and if we go far enough, we can get sci-fi. She could be a robot. Or a cyborg. And this is where I landed.